Jesus is the Answer... for the World

 

Jesus is the Answer

   I had become a Christian while I was in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in North Carolina.  I was just getting started in my Christian life when I did something that was either dumb, or directed, depending on how you looked at it.  When you were in the military during those days, they would periodically send around a sheet for you to look at and decide where in the world you would be willing to be relocated.  It would list quite a few countries in the world that had an AF Base that you could put in for.  Of course, most guys would be sure and pick out Germany, and Hawaii, and places like that.  For some reason, I checked that I would be willing to go to the Middle East. 

   Maybe I thought about the time that I had lived in the country of Turkey when I was a kid when my dad was stationed there in the Military and I didn’t have too many bad memories about that experience.  For whatever reason, I picked it along with a number of other countries.  Wouldn’t you know it – It was the fall of 1976 and I was selected to be stationed; by the AF, to the country of Turkey and was there in less than seven months!   It was there that I had a very wonderful experience that is the subject of this paper.

   I had been in the country for about 9 months and was at the base in Adana Turkey.  I was working my job, attending a Church service at the Base Chapel, and trying to grow in my Christian life.  When I had first got stationed in Turkey, I had spent a lot of time in my barracks room playing my guitar.  I had played mostly folk music before I became a Christian, but I felt led to start listening to and playing Christian music.  Contemporary Christian music was just starting in the United States and I had gotten a song sheet with a song by Andre Crouch called “Jesus is the Answer”.  I had never heard the song on a radio or LP, but the paper had the guitar chords, so I kind of made up the how I thought the song should be played.  I would play this song over and over again in my room and a few worship songs and that was about all that I had to play.

   One day I had heard from another Christian on base that there was an actual Christian Church in Iskenderun, Turkey which was not that far from Adana.  It was just north of where the town of Antioch was located during biblical times.  I wanted to try and visit this group of Turkish Christians, so I set out with my Bible and Guitar and took a bus with a few notes from a friend as to where I could try and meet up with the pastor.  The bus ride was quite an experience in itself.  There were a couple of unusual things about it.  First of all, if there was just one person at a bus stop – they would just slow down and a second bus employee would hold his arm out the back door and pull the person in.  This person also had the job of trying to keep the bus a little bit clean and smelling good and since there were small animals that were allowed on the bus, this was no small task.  One thing he would do is walk up and down the aisle and put a little bit of ointment in your hand; if you wanted it, to keep the smell manageable.  I was having an enjoyable time as a lot of the people on the bus would stare at me from time to time since I had the blondest hair on the bus.  Most people in Turkey had jet black hair, so I stood out quite a bit.  I also remember eating pistachios and glancing out the side of the bus and seeing cars at the bottom of the mountain ravine as we made our way through some small mountains.  It was very challenging for the driver since it was really just one wide lane instead of two and there were no guardrails!

   When I got to Iskenderun, I found the Pastor very quickly.  Someone had let him know that I would be visiting him.  He was a wonderful man and spoke English pretty well.  He saw my guitar and asked if I was going to play for the Church the next day.  I said “Sure!”  He asked if I was going to sing in Turkish and I let him know that even though I knew a few words – I did not know enough to sing in Turkish.  He said “Sure you can, I can write down the words for you.”  So, after visiting with him for a couple of hours, I spent most of the rest of the evening trying to learn the words enough to be able to sing them the next day.

   I had found out that the group of Christians there once had a Church building, but the government had taken it over and had ran them out.  They still wanted to meet, so for a while they met in people’s homes.  The town did have an old Armenian Church which the government allowed to continue as a Church.  I am not sure of all the reasons, but it might be an agreement with the country of Armenia.  The Christians would wait till the Armenian group was finished and then they were allowed to use the building for their service in the early afternoon.  When the service time had come there were over a hundred people including quite a few children that were in the service.

   During the service, I was introduced and went up front, and in my best Turkish, I sang the words “Isa bugünku, elayanim javar bundu.  Ondan başka yoktur, Isa Yoldur.”  I’m not sure if that is the best translation, but those are the words that I remember singing.  This was one of the most precious Christian moments that I have ever had in my life.  I was an American; singing in front of a group of persecuted Turkish Christians, and I was singing that “Jesus is the answer for the world today.  Above Him there is no other, Jesus is the way.”  What could be more powerful and wonderful as that? 

   Many years have come and gone, and I still have some pictures that I took that day and continue to remember that visit and continue to sing that wonderful Andre Crouch song!

“If you have some questions, In the corners of your mind,

Traces of discouragement, the peace you cannot find,

Reflections of your past, Seem to face you every day,

But this one thing I do know, That Jesus is the way. 

Jesus is the answer, for the world today,

Above Him there's no other,

Jesus is the way. 

I know you've got mountains, that you think you cannot climb,

I know your skies are dark, you think the sun won't shine,

But in case you don't know, That the word of God is true,

Everything he's promised, He will do it for you.”

 

   I would like to share one more interesting story about that Turkish pastor.  I found out that he was a bi-vocational pastor, meaning that he worked a full-time job and then did his pastoral work.  He told me “Lee, here in Turkey you can have a fifteen minute ministry, or a fifteen year ministry.”  He told me that if you were to start passing out gospel tracts to people on the street, someone would probably call the police and it about fifteen minutes you would be arrested.  He told me that in the country of Turkey it is against the law to proselytize, but if someone asks you a question – you can answer it.  He said come and see where I work.  I went with him to a small restaurant that he owned.  It was a small café where people would love to come and sit down and have a cup of cay (Turkish tea) and sit and visit while dipping the ekmek (Turkish bread) in a small bowl of humus.  As you sat in his restaurant, you would see pictures all over the walls of the restaurant from the Bible.  He had a picture of Jesus walking on the water, of Him feeding the five thousand, of Him hanging on a cross, and many others.  The people would sit and eat and sometimes they would ask him “What is that a picture of?”  He had every legal right to tell them exactly what that was portraying and he was able to talk to a number of people about the love of Jesus Christ. 

Truly, Jesus IS the answer for the world!

 

Written by: Lee Malden – email  lmalden@hotmail.com        2014